NEW YORK (AP) — A surge for Intel following a blowout profit report led the U.S. stock market to more records Friday, while oil prices kept yo-yoing in the wait for what’s next with the Iran war.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.8% and topped its prior all-time high, which was set on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 79 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite rallied 1.6% to its own record thanks to the jump for tech.
Intel led the way and roared past its 2000 peak during the dot-com boom to an all-time high. It soared 23.6% for its best day since 1987 after reporting much stronger results for the first three months of the year than analysts expected. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the next wave of artificial-intelligence technology is increasing the need for Intel’s chips and products, and the company’s forecast for profit in the spring topped analysts’ estimates.
Such strong profit reports have helped Wall Street rally to records, and the S&P 500 has leaped nearly 13% in a little under a month. Hopes have also built in financial markets that the United States and Iran can find a way to avoid a worst-case scenario for the global economy because of their war.
A ceasefire is tenuously in place between the two, but tensions between them are still keeping oil tankers from passing through the Strait of Hormuz to deliver crude from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide.
Oil prices climbed this week on worries about the strait, but an encouraging signal came Friday after Iran’s top diplomat said he was heading to Pakistan. That’s where officials have been trying to get the United States and Iran to convene for a second round of ceasefire negotiations.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said in an interview on Fox News Channel that President Donald Trump is sending his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan to meet with Iran’s foreign minister.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June yo-yoed for much of the day before settling at $105.33, up 0.2%. The price for a barrel of Brent oil delivered in July, which is where more of the trading is happening in the market, fell 0.2% to $99.13.
On Wall Street, Procter & Gamble rose 2.5% after reporting stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Shailesh Jejurikar said it saw broad-based growth across regions and products, which include Bounty paper towels and Tide detergent.
That helped offset a drop of 25.5% for Charter Communications, whose profit for the latest quarter came in weaker than analysts expected. It lost 120,000 internet customers during the three months, more than some analysts expected.
Source: WPLG
